2004

514 | Chapter 20 Dimensions and Tolerances
Use Dimension Styles
You can control the appearance of dimensions by changing settings. For con-
venience and to help maintain dimensioning standards, you can store these
settings in dimension styles.
Overview of Dimension Styles
By modifying a dimension style, you can update all existing dimensions
created previously with that dimension style to reflect the new settings. The
Dimension Style Manager allows you to modify the following:
■ Extension lines, dimension lines, arrowheads, center marks or lines, and
the offsets between them
■ The positioning of the parts of the dimension in relation to one another
and the orientation of the dimension text
■ The content and appearance of the dimension text
To set the current dimension style
■ On the Styles toolbar, in the Dimension Styles control, click the arrow and
select a dimension style from the list.
Command line
DIMSTYLE
Compare Dimension Styles and Variables
You can list the dimension styles in the current drawing. You can also list all
dimensioning system variables and their current status or only the variables
affected by a dimension style.
When you list the current status of all dimensioning system variables,
AutoCAD lists any running overrides that apply to the current dimension
style. You can also list the differences between a named dimension style and
the current dimension style.
Use Externally Referenced Dimension Styles
AutoCAD displays externally referenced dimension style names using the
same syntax as for other externally dependent named objects. When you
view externally referenced dimension styles using the Dimension Style
Manager, the name of the xref displays in the Styles list as Xref:drawing name
with each xref style appearing below the drawing name. For example, if the
drawing file baseplat.dwg has a dimension style called FRACTIONAL-1, and